The following is an AZPM original production.

From the radio studios of AZPM, welcome to this latest edition of The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Coming up, a boost in funding for ICE could make it the federal government's largest law enforcement agency.

How could that affect communities in Southern Arizona?

Also less than one week before special election day, we know how much money CD7 candidates have raised.

Will that cash affect the outcome?

A panel of journalists joins me to discuss those stories and more next on The Press Room.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ It's The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Thanks for joining us today.

Journalists with us are Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight, John Washington of AZ Luminaria, Danyelle Khmara of AZPM News, and Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Sentinel.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you.

So John, we're, gosh, a week later or so on the so-called, and I'm gonna call it on this on the air, the Big Beautiful Bill.

One of the concerns that a lot of people have obviously is related to Medicaid funding.

But let's talk specifically about massively increasing funding for ICE could actually make it the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country surpassing the FBI.

Just give me your general observations about what this bill could mean for Southern Arizona, for immigrants undocumented, or folks who've been here for a number of generations, but maybe a certain color.

Well, yeah, I think we will surpass FBI.

Already, CBP is the largest.

Taking together ICE and Border Patrol and CBP guards is by far the largest law enforcement agency in the country, and maybe one of the largest in the world.

And what we are gonna see is a massive spending increase, and that is going to fund more wall, significantly more detention beds.

That is gonna raise the detention beds to as many as potentially 100,000, which is something that will change the face of immigration enforcement in this country.

This is absolutely unprecedented.

Also a huge hiring spree, where they will try to surge as many new guards, many new ICE agents as possible.

And we have some precedent here for when the DHS has tried to very quickly hire a lot of people before, and it has not gone well.

There was a whistleblower back in the early teens, James Tomsheck, I covered him extensively.

He is the late head of Chief of Internal Affairs at CBP, and he detailed to the country what problems happened when they tried to very quickly hire lots of Border Patrol agents.

They didn't do sufficient background checks.

They fast-tracked the training, and they ended up hiring people that included a serial killer, people who were cartel members.

And right now I think, given the conditions that we're in right now in the country, who is actually attracted to becoming an ICE agent right now?

Someone who is ready to join the sort of rough-em-up style that we're seeing in the news.

And so I think it's really startling what we're gonna see.

Well, and Caitlin, based on what John is saying, there are too a lot of people who are concerned about seeing ICE agents, we presume they're ICE agents, they're wearing masks.

We saw what happened in Los Angeles with military vehicles going through.

But what does it look like to you?

Does this look like these are the promises that Donald Trump made, that people didn't quite realize what these promises were necessarily?

These are gonna affect communities in a major way.

Yeah, I mean, I think this is what he was promising on every campaign stop along the way, and people just didn't realize that we got lost in fentanyl and criminals, and didn't see the bigger picture of what this would do to communities, which is terrorize them.

There's been a lot of concern about militarizing the police, and we don't have to worry about militarizing local police because we are sending in basically the federal military now to do this.

Danyelle, last time you were on the program, you were reporting on a US citizen, and there was this confusion with the border patrol and all this.

This sounds to me like we could see a lot more cases like that coming forward based on ICE having the ability to sort of go willy-nilly, it sounds like.

Yeah, I mean, I would say when ICE is arresting people without following the proper procedures that we have in place, we could see more cases like this.

And one thing that I think is interesting is that we've already seen a huge increase in the number of people that are being detained by ICE.

And one third of those people, records show, have no criminal history.

So as far as Trump previously saying that he was gonna get criminals off the street, the numbers are showing that it's actually going a lot farther than that.

One more thing that I thought was interesting about the funding that just passed is despite the fact that there was a huge increase in funding for personnel to detain people, there wasn't a similar increase.

There was an increase in funding for immigration courts, but nowhere near the increase to detain people.

So in other words, the backlog in immigration court, which is already huge, is likely gonna get even worse.

Yeah, I wanna come back to that, but general observations on this as far as how it relates?

Well, we saw Mark Kelly this week talking about this, and he's saying, look, the way you're going about this is creating chaos in communities, it's creating confusion.

You've got these plainclothes officers snatching people up and putting them into unmarked vehicles.

He's saying it's creating opportunities for criminals to go out and do the same thing and kidnap people because who knows who these people are.

And I think we're moving down a path with the additional funding that's going to prove pretty terrifying for a lot of people in the community.

John, coming back to Danyelle's point about the immigration judges, that to me is when President Trump took office this time, a bunch of judges were fired, but then the idea is, well, we're gonna have so many more cases.

Well, how do you get through those cases?

Isn't it more of a backlog, right?

Yeah, the backlog is already over a million cases, and there's funding in this bill to add I think an additional 100 immigration judges.

There are only 700 right now.

So you're adding less than 10%, and yet you're doubling, you're potentially doubling the number of people who are gonna be detained.

So obviously the backlog will increase, and yeah, this is not just something that does not address it at all.

So Jim, let me start with you on this next one.

Juan Ciscomani said this bill was not perfect.

I think probably a lot of people would agree on that.

What does it say to you?

I know there are only two Republicans who did not vote in favor and go the way President Trump did, but I think I've asked this question way too many times in different forms.

What is Representative Ciscomani move on this?

It seems like it's gonna hurt a lot of people in CD6 potentially.

I think Juan made a lot of comments during the progress of this about how it was important to not see certain things happen to Medicaid.

It was important to maintain green energy subsidies because of the industry that is developing here in the United States.

And then at the end of the day, he fell in lockstep with his fellow Republicans, and he voted to pass the bill.

His Democratic opponents were quick to jump on him about this, and I imagine it's going to be a major issue moving forward into that campaign.

The question is how much of the impact of what this bill does will be felt by next year?

And does it give the Democrats an opportunity to win a seat that is in a swing district here in Southern Arizona?

Yeah, and Caitlin, the story that Jim did for the Sentinel, quoted the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association and El Rio Community Health saying that, I mean, obviously we've heard about the concerns for Medicaid.

That to me really is the striking point, especially with what Juan Ciscomani's been saying, because in some ways he, it's almost like he sounds like a moderate but doesn't vote like one.

Yes, and that's been the attack on him from the start.

I think that's what Kirsten Engel came after him pretty hard in the last campaign.

I think CD6 is gonna be crowded.

We've already heard from a couple of people that are entering the race.

I think this will make it even more crowded, and I think we can expect to see that selfie on campaign ads pretty soon would be my guess.

That's a great photo you've had in your column, or your article, which I think is Sentinel likes to show that one a lot.

Well, that's one that they sent over to us and said, "Be sure to use this."

So it seems appropriate in certain, so it's a selfie of Juan with Donald Trump, in arm in arm.

So it's-- Happy greens on both, yes.

And yet, a lot of the Medicaid cuts are not gonna likely take effect until after that election.

And some of the further downstream, I mean, not very far downstream, but some of the potential hospital closures or assisted living facilities that lots of people are expecting to shutter, especially in rural parts of the state and throughout the country, including CD6, won't actually happen before this next election.

So maybe he doesn't actually have to face all the consequences among the constituency quite yet.

True, and some of it doesn't even take place until Trump's out of office.

So they've backloaded a lot of the cuts in this.

Yeah, Caitlin?

I think you will be hearing from the nonprofit industry, though, because they're gonna bear the brunt of a lot of this, and they're already struggling.

So it'll be interesting to see if they get involved in campaigning, but they've been joining forces and had been for weeks to really urge people to contact Juan Ciscomani and other representatives and vote against this.

So it's not a great enemy to have.

And Danyelle, a few minutes we're gonna talk about CD7, but both CD6 and CD7, a lot of residents who really rely on these government programs for low-income folks.

And there isn't, I mean, I even think about when Mitt Romney was running, he wasn't exactly the most liberal person who was saying, well, we at least need to protect the safety net for folks who really need it.

This sounds like the safety net is sort of going away.

Yeah, well, and that's something that Juan Ciscomani, I think he does understand that, which is why he kept saying over and over again-- You spoke with him, yeah.

That, yeah, I interviewed him a few months ago.

I've read all the statements and the letters he's put out, and he said many times that he wanted to protect these services, especially one specific thing that he had mentioned, which John was just mentioning with the federal share of funding for rural hospitals that help support low-income people who may show up without having proper insurance.

He said that he wasn't gonna support cuts to that, and in the end, he did.

So, yeah.

Let's tie this back to the first topic of conversation.

So Medicaid is being federally cut, and those funds are going to go to ICE enforcement and detention capacity.

So we're seeing a pretty direct cut one area and bolster another of the economy, and I think the decision, the priorities of this administration are becoming clear.

So I'm gonna ask one more political question and I'll move on.

Caitlin, let me start with you on this, because I keep thinking about the word that's become a verb is primaried.

You're afraid of getting primaried.

I mean, without reading Juan Cisconmani's mind, we've all talked to him at some point or other.

Does it sound like a politician who thinks this is the best way to sort of protect his own skin?

In a lot of ways, it seems like, so you're not gonna get primarie on the right, but maybe that makes Democrats stronger against you in the general.

It seems like it's a no-win game for him.

Right, yeah, this doesn't, I can't figure out this strategy, honestly.

People are very tuned to the fact that he is saying one thing and voting the absolute other way.

And he, I mean, that was his record before.

They came down on him hard.

It still continues to be his record.

So, yeah, I'm not sure who's giving him advice on this one, but it's an interesting tactic.

Yeah, Jim?

Well, I think you're right.

He's concerned about a primary challenge more than a general election challenge, but he does represent a swing district.

And I think he's won his elections by less than two or three points each time, so.

John, final thoughts on that?

Yeah, I guess maybe his logic is perfect as enemy of good, but what he's done is he's just followed lockstep.

A lot of other Republicans, as this bill's being negotiated, were out against it.

And yet, almost through and through, they voted in support, so yeah.

So, Danyelle, let me start with you on this next one.

This was done by AZ Central.

I hope all of you had a chance to just look into it, because you guys have all covered this.

We've talked about ICE and immigration courts at cities around the country.

We've all talked about that.

Now the Department of Justice is distributing flyers, calling on immigrants to self-deport.

It kind of reminds me of all these radio and TV ads with Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, saying, "If you self-deport, you might have a chance to get back in the country.

Otherwise, no."

What message does this send to have self-deportation flyers at these courts?

Yeah, I mean, to me, it seemed like a similar strategy to people being detained and arrested when they show up to their immigration court hearings.

It's taking a place where they know that there will be people who are immigrants coming into their court hearings and giving them this message of get out.

But the interesting thing is, is that the people that are showing up to their court cases, by the very nature of having a court case, have a legal standing until the judge, if the judge rules in their case, that they have to leave the country.

So, I think we could end up seeing a case like we did when there were people, when there were ICE agents detaining people going to their court case where people are afraid to show up at their court hearings.

Yeah, turn about the clock a little bit more.

And someone you already mentioned just a moment ago is Mitt Romney.

He was one of the first prominent national attorneys who embraced this self-deportati And it follows a logic that goes back even further.

I mean, as of the 1990s, there's been this explicit board through deterrence, which is basically make things bad enough in the country or on the way into the country that people decide not to come.

And yet, that strategy hasn't really worked so well over the past few decades.

All right, so we've talked a bit in the past about how this could affect due process when it comes to ICE agents sitting outside the courtroom.

How could this potentially affect due process, John?

Just the idea of these flyers being everywhere.

The legal pathways or scared to access the legal pathways.

And we've actually also seen, and this is dubiously legal, that judges are actually terminating people's cases before their final hearings.

So the lack of due process, I think, is something that is basically across the board at this point.

And the administration is coming down as many ways as possible to try to just keep people out or kick people out.

Could we also just remind ourselves of the consequences here?

I mean, the people who are being affected by this are largely folks who have been living and working in the country or have been very explicitly trying to follow the legal pathways, as Danyelle was just saying.

And so you have millions of people who are essential parts of our economy or have woven themselves into the fabric of this community who are now facing this intimidation tactics by this administration.

And also part of this flyer too is imposing an increased penalty.

So if you have a final order of deportation and you haven't already self-deported, you face a $998 per day fee as long as you remain in the country.

Yeah, Danyelle, go ahead.

And so, yeah, the only other thing I was gonna say is that people are also sometimes getting these flyers after their court case has finished, which to me just sounds like incredibly confusing because a judge has, in some of these cases, ruled that they don't have any reason to be deported to their country.

So why would they then get a flyer like this?

Caitlin, one thing that stood out to me is the flyers are said to be titled, "Message to illegal aliens, a warning to self-deport."

So even the language is a little bit, not exactly fresh.

Right, yeah, I mean, this is like bad business 101, right?

I mean, if you have an employee that you wanna quit and you don't wanna fire them and pay severance, you make things as bad and uncomfortable for them as you possibly can so that they leave and it doesn't cost you anything.

Interesting that we're seeing a business strategy play out in government, but not quite so much.

Well, and it's obviously, we've talked about this a lot too.

A lot of these things are just, we're on this wheel.

But Jim, it strikes me as well that you have, again, I always go back to my poly-sci stuff from 100 years ago, Main Street Republicans, Wall Street Republicans.

It seems like at some point, there's gonna be a clash unless the Wall Street Republicans have all just decided to check out and say, no, no, whatever you wanna do.

Because if we look at agriculture, we look at a guest worker program, but that's not the emphasis at all right now.

Isn't that gonna hurt the economy in addition to being not humanitarian?

Well, we will see, but we've certainly seen the president go back and forth on this where he said, oh, you know what, the farmers, they know who they're hiring, so those immigrants are totally fine.

And then going back on, oh, wait, no, we are gonna round them up.

So I think if you are in the agricultural community, you're watching your crops rot on the vine and you don't have any clear guidance about what you can do.

Yeah, the advice agents don't know what to do.

They probably will err on the side of something else, right?

Yeah, I mean, we have at this point, 22 years of evidence showing that this is the case, and including arresting, suppose US citizens.

There are people who have green cards currently at risk of severe health consequences in immigration detention in Arizona right now.

I'm not sure if I'm one of the few people who's excited about the CD7 election in a few days, but I am, I'm very excited.

And Jim, you had some fundraising numbers in there, which is interesting because now we're looking at fundraising numbers just a few days before, and a number of people have already voted.

What stood out to you as far as fundraising numbers go?

Daniel Hernandez was on top?

Daniel Hernandez was on top, but not by a lot.

He'd raised about a million dollars.

Adelita Grijalva said that following the end of the quarter, she'd gotten up to the million dollar threshold, roughly speaking.

And I think it's interesting that Deja Foxx, who nobody had ever heard of before in this community anyway, came out and raised $600,000, but she has a vast network across the board with through her TikTok and her Instagram followers.

And that's allowed her-- You said that sort of dismissively.

You know, my question is how many, what's the overlap between the folks that follow her on TikTok and Instagram and the folks that vote in a Democratic primary in CD6 or CD7, excuse me.

Well, that's what this poll you wrote about as well.

We're not taking that with a grain of salt, a shaker of salt or not?

Well, certainly some pollsters are saying, this is pretty questionable.

I think the folks up at Uplift campaigns have been tracking who's voting in this election.

And they had 57% of them were 65 plus.

And in Deja's poll, that community was 34%.

And likewise with younger voters under 34, she had it at 20% and the actual turnout's been about 7%.

The poll referring to had Adelita Grijalva at 43%, Deja Foxx at 35?

Yes, yeah, yeah.

And I think, you know, there are three scenarios.

Adelita wins, she's the favorite.

She's got the name ID, she's raised enough money, she's been out campaigning hard.

Daniel Hernandez manages with his moderate approach to campaigning to capture the lefty Democrats who are voting in as primary, because turnout's only at about 20% at this point among Democrats.

So it's gonna be a very low turnout election mostly older voters who are casting ballots.

Or Deja Foxx pulls off this amazing upset having come out of nowhere.

And I think the most likely scenario is Adelita wins here.

Well, this is a radio and TV program, but Caitlin, thank you for bringing show and tell.

So for the TV audience, what do we have for?

We have campaign mailers from the Deja Foxx campaign.

First time I've ever brought props, guys.

First time you ever brought notes, too.

I know, right?

Anyways, but what I think is so interesting about this is I don't know about you all, but I really thought this was gonna be an ugly fight between Grijalva and Hernandez coming out.

And it's now Deja Foxx and Adelita Grijalva who are going pretty hard against each other.

I mean, here we have the, we need a real progressive in Congress.

Here's how they stack up where Deja's hacking, or this pack, I should say, is attacking Adelita's record.

We just had an op-ed in the Arizona Daily Star the other day written by a 19-year-old Harvard student who is supporting Adelita Grijalva and really attacked Deja Foxx's lack of community involvement and action.

And I saw something on Instagram the other day that called her a progressive cosplayer.

So, I mean, both sides are really gunning for each other hard, which I did not see that coming.

Yeah, and John, I thought it was interesting, too.

The New York Times decided to focus on Deja Foxx.

Politico this week also had a big, the divide, the generational divide, what do you think?

I mean, she's run a savvy campaign.

She obviously has a huge social media following and she's thrown out the bait for national attention and she's gotten it.

What we see is that Grijalva, too, has sort of stepped up her social media game.

You see more and more posts, kind of fun posts on Instagram that she's been publishing recently.

But I think the question is, as Jim said, is how many of those followers are trans-- like carry over into people who are gonna vote and vote in a hot season, off season primary election?

Yeah, Danyelle, what are your thoughts on this race at this point?

Well, you know, I mean, just going back to what Caitlin was saying about some of the name calling and whatnot, there was one thing, I think it was mentioned in Jim's article, actually.

It was an ad featuring Deja Foxx talking about Adelita Grijalva voting to close schools and increase class sizes.

And I just thought it was kind of simplifying a 20-year career as an elected official who did an unpaid job.

So I don't know if something like that is gonna work on the people in this district who have known Adelita Grijalva for a long time.

I do think you can credit Deja for running a savvy campaign for sure and building up a lot of name ID in this race.

If she does not win, it will be very interesting to see where she goes from here.

Yeah, I think if she does not win and she goes and runs for city council or board of supervisors or any position, she's got a great chance.

And then she's got a great platform going on to something bigger.

Jim, I think my only skepticism on that though is that we've seen a lot of people run for Congress in let's say one of these very crowded fields and really make an impact.

And let's say a six or seven person field, get 21%.

And then if the first race you run for is Congress, practically, yes, running for council or supervisor makes sense, but once people reach that height and they're being written by the New York Times, it's hard to be humble again, isn't it?

Yeah, perhaps.

I mean, maybe we saw this isn't at the exact same level, but another local politician, Andrés Cano, was the state legislature and then kind of, some people might see it as backtracking, but other people might see it as leaning into the community is now a supervisor on the board of supervisors.

Pay is certainly better on the board of supervisors than it is in the Arizona legislature.

And that was where he came from, really.

I mean, he'd been in that office for a long time.

Hard to have it be worse.

Well, I'm gonna throw it out here.

Obviously, we don't even record this show.

Yes, we do.

But what's the prediction?

I mean, I think Adelita Grijalva's got the name recognition in this one to carry her through.

I'm gonna, a gun to my head, making your call.

I was saying Adelita's going to make that over and out.

I think it's gonna be an exciting Tuesday night.

Oh my gosh.

You know, these people who are just not right.

Danyelle, what do you think?

You don't have to give me just, do you think it's gonna be close?

I don't think it's gonna be that close.

I'm just guessing, but yeah, I don't think it's gonna be that close.

Jim, last thing on this.

I mean, not being sarcastic, I'm remiss in not mentioning the Republicans at all.

The money raised was not much.

Jorge Rivas, I think it was $11,000 or something in your story.

Is there any chance, because it's a special election, and once we get to September, or is this because of the way the district's drawn, it's gonna be a Democrat, or whoever wins this primary is gonna win.

I mean, I think there's roughly two Democrats for every one Republican in the district, although I think about 40% are independent.

But I don't think the national mood is moving in the direction of the Republican party.

And I think if you look at the betting odds on this raise, I was talking to Jimmy Rodriguez, one of the Republican candidates, and he pointed out it's a 3% chance of a Republican winning in September, and I think that might be generous.

If only I got about two minutes left, John, but I wanna go to the story.

Follow-up you did for Luminaria related to a policy at PCSD related to deputies calling border patrol agents and their brother was in immigra enforcement.

So, because we don't have a lot of time, you got a response, the policy apparently has changed without anyone really knowing.

What did your communication with Sheriff Nanos tell you?

Yeah, so I'm going back to immigration enforcement again.

So this was, we found that the Pima County Sheriff's Department had a policy in which they would track every time their deputies made a call to border patrol for assistance, and turned anyone over into border patrol custody.

And after I got some records, I found that they had not been actually tracking those calls.

And when I asked about it, Sheriff Nanos told me that he didn't even know that there was such a policy.

And after we published less than a week later, they actually removed that language from the rules and regulations in the department's guidelines.

So, Jen Allen, who is a county supervisor and others in the community say, "Look, you say that this isn't something that the Sheriff's Department is doing, and yet we have anecdotal evidence," and even a paper record at this point, of them making such calls to border patrol.

And when they remove this policy from their official rules and regulations, the community is looking for more transparency and wants clarity on this issue.

Well, very briefly, very briefly, he says that Sheriff's, since the practice ended in 2021, but you found that in 2023, after he took office again, that it was still in effect, pretty briefly on that.

That's right, yeah, he told me just this week that the policy is obsolete because we're not making those calls.

And yet the records that they themselves gave me show that up until they were keeping records in June of 2023, they were still making such calls.

Okay, thanks everybody.

John Washington, AZ Luminari, Danyelle Khmara, AZPM News, Caitlin Schmidt, Tucson Spotlight, Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Sentinel, thank you all for being here.

And thank you all for joining us for this latest edition of The Press Room from the radio studios of AZPM.

We're back next week.

I'm Steve Goldstein.